Your Home’s Top 5 Risks for Fire

11/5/2021 (Permalink)

Regardless of the cause, SERVPRO of Lowell are here for you if your home is affected by fire

Fire safety reminders are ubiquitous. If you’re at a place of business, they even hang on the walls. You did fire drills every year in school, and you learned to stop, drop and roll. We’re all pretty well-acquainted with the dangers of fire by this point.

And yet somehow, more than one-fourth of all reported fires, and more than three-fourths of all civilian fire casualties, happen at home.

What are we still missing about fire safety? Let’s look at the most likely places fires may begin at home, and you can see for yourself.

Cooking. The most likely place, by a long shot, for a fire to start in your home, is the kitchen. And the most likely cause of a fire in the kitchen by quite a margin is unattended cooking. If you’re leaving food to cook while you step out of the room, or being inattentive to the cooking process, you’re cooking up disaster.

Heating equipment. It’s only reasonable to assume that the increased use of heating equipment and elements during colder months might lead to a rise in fires—it’s simply going to happen sometimes. But beyond equipment malfunction there are a couple of important things to always keep in mind. Keep your heat sources safely away from anything that could ignite—furniture, bedding, clothes. And if you’re using a portable space heater, keep it from tipping or overheating, and prevent dangerous scenarios by turning it off whenever you leave the room and when you go to sleep.

Electrical fires. Electricity is an inherent fire risk, but routine maintenance, inspection and upgrades can keep you from as much danger as possible. Frayed or aging wiring can easily lead to shorts, overloads and other dangers, as can things like misusing extension cords and overloading light sources with high-wattage bulbs.

Intentional fires. It happens more often that you’d think: Around 28,000 intentional home fires happen each year in the U.S. More than 75 fires a day are started with the intent of doing harm to a piece of property.

Smoking materials. The lowest statistical cause for home fires comes with the highest price tag—more people die as a result of smoking mishaps than any other cause. If smoking is your thing, never do it while you’re groggy, impaired or in bed, or you could end up paying the ultimate price.

Regardless of the cause, SERVPRO is here for you if your home is affected by fire. Contact your local team today to see how we can help.